


Sixpence and a Sugar Mouse

by PollyPocalypse



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Christmas, Love Confessions, M/M, Old-timey decorations, children hitting each other with newspapers because it’s TRADITIONAL dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:20:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21993607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PollyPocalypse/pseuds/PollyPocalypse
Summary: It’s been several months since they saved the world, and Crowley is gradually coming to the mortifying realisation that one of them is going to have to say something.Crowley reflects on loose ends. Also, it's Christmas.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 61





	Sixpence and a Sugar Mouse

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Boxing Day of Boxing Day of Boxing day, folks. This was intended to be published a little earlier, before the author was struck by the novel realisation that celebrating Christmas tends to take up a lot of one's time. 
> 
> The song mentioned near the end is the Sussex Carol, which of all the choral music pieces is the one that tends to tap into my childhood seasonal nostalgia the most. There's a nice version here which may enhance the story if employed as background music. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0XfVqSiPDo
> 
> Crowley's little stunt with "The War is Over" may or may not be based on a personal anecdote from my days of working in Tesco's, which may or may not have resulted in me never being able to be in a room with that song playing ever again. The offhand mention of grisly snowmen was inspired by Calvin and Hobbes.

The invitation arrives in the post in early December, hand-written, requesting their presence at a cosy little pre-Christmas get-together at the Youngs’ house. 

As far as Mr Young is concerned, they’re simply a couple of eccentric but public-spirited bystanders who helped his unruly son get out of a spot of trouble at the air base, and formed an odd little intergenerational friendship of sorts in the meantime. Their invitation is something of a mark of gratitude, therefore, alongside a certain amount of curiosity. 

Now it’s the 22nd and, as he heads towards the bookshop to pick up Aziraphale, Crowley reflects on the loose end he’s found himself at. 

It’s been several months since they saved the world, and Crowley is gradually coming to the mortifying realisation that one of them is going to have to say something. 

To be quite frank, he hadn’t thought as far ahead as actually having to _talk _about it with his mouth. He always assumed that they had an Understanding, unspoken though it was. That it was only circumstances keeping them apart, and once all that was out of the way and they could do what they wanted... well.__

____

____

He’s certain... well, fairly certain, reasonably certain, call it about sixty per cent...that all that very _human _romantic tension buzzing around them when they’re together isn’t solely emanating from himself.__

____

____

He’s not sure what exactly he’d expected to happen once they’d thrown off their metaphorical chains and defected to their own side. Possibly he’d just sort of assumed they might fall into each other’s arms in an organic sort of way without needing to discuss it in detail beforehand. But instead they’d just... carried on, really. Spent social time together much more freely, admittedly, but with no discussion of any kind of changes in the exact nature of their relationship. 

Sometimes, though, when they’re winding down for the night and one or the other of them is on his way out the door, Crowley will see Aziraphale hesitate, shift a little on his feet before opening the door, let the moment last a little too long and look for all the world as if he’s about to say something, but then look at the floor and mutter “Goodnight, Crowley” before making his way out into the night, or watching Crowley make his own way out. 

Someone should say something. He knows. Someone really, really ought to say something. 

_Someone _… oh, christ.__

____

____

In another life, without all these complications, perhaps it would have been easy. Casual, even. Maybe they would have tried out kissing over a particularly good _St Emilion _and discovered that they enjoyed it even more than the wine. But it hadn’t panned out that way for them, had it? Not with circumstances being what they were.__

____

____

***

When Crowley arrives at the bookshop (wreathed in miscellaneous greenery; fir tree in a sand-filled pot tucked nicely into a corner, _Adeste Fidelis _playing on the gramophone), Aziraphale is in the process of stringing together pine cones and cinnamon sticks for a decorative chain in his back room. Lost in concentration, he’s oblivious to Crowley’s entrance and Crowley takes advantage of this to watch him for a while, take in that serene look of focus on his features. He looks happy like this, lost in one of his little hobbies. The sight of it makes Crowley feel warm inside.__

____

____

After a good five minutes have passed, he gives up and clears his throat. 

Aziraphale smiles when he looks up. “Hello, my dear.”  
“How’s the decorating going?”  
“Almost finished. I found some lovely poinsettias in Mr Cabral's garden centre. Wonderful chap, he let me have them at a discount. Thought they were past their best, but... well. Perhaps you could help me lick them into shape?" That familiar wheedling look crosses over his features.  
Crowley gives a put-upon sigh with no real malice behind it. "Yep. Point me towards them when we come back. You ready to go?"  
"Oh... of course." Aziraphale abandons his handiwork and gets up, heading towards the door to gather up a bottle of port with a ribbon tied around the neck. "Shall we?" 

The whole Christmas trend had really kicked off in the 1800’s, what with the upsurge in wealth following the Industrial Revolution, mass toy production and that newfangled “giving people the day off work” business. Aziraphale had wholeheartedly got into it all, in the same way he’d got into dancing the Gavotte and doing his ropey magic tricks. He actually looks forward to the carol singers coming around, as long as they don’t try to buy his books. Crowley knows this, because the minute the two of them had been on good terms again following their tiff at the duckpond, Aziraphale had insisted on showing him how it was traditionally done. Crowley has heard tell of him manifesting himself around this time of year to the odd miserly business moghul and delicately suggesting that they did particularly deep in their pockets in the upcoming year to contribute to a few worthy causes. He’s not sure how successful the attempts are, mind. 

Crowley, meanwhile, had rather taken to it himself. A shiny new project to get his teeth into. He’s done some of his best work during the festive season. All the crowded shopping centres and the mucking about with unreliable lights and people realising a bit late in the day that the expensive toy they've just bought needs a really _specific _battery size they don’t have. He’d once rigged the stereo system in several supermarkets to play _The War is Over_ on a continuous loop for several hours, after which point most of the staff - and the odd customer - were on the verge of tearing their own ears off. He had a hand in the inspiration for a certain kind of godawful made-for-TV Christmas film, and it wasn’t _his _fault that so many of them happened to gain a cult following.____

_____ _

_____ _

Meanwhile a century or so later, Aziraphale still favours the cosy Dickensian brand of seasonal aesthetic. It has a ritualistic sort of comfort for him. All decorative candles and _I Saw Three Ships _and putting silver coins in the pudding. The angel radiates contentment when he’s got something to throw himself into like this. That unself-conscious delight makes heat flare up in Crowley's belly and a tightness to rise in his throat, although he'd never admit that out loud.__

____

____

They often used to spend the day together. Well, not actually _spend Christmas together _, that sounded far too official. But Crowley would drop by with a bottle of something warming - just passing by, really, nothing to write home about - whilst Aziraphale just happened to be in, enjoying his tastefully-decorated homestead, maybe reading some Dickens, and the two of them would get comfortable together, drinking brandy, eating plum pudding and arguing about books and whatnot and what with one thing and another Crowley wouldn’t be in any particular rush to be off anywhere and, goodness, where did the time go, before either of them knew where they were they had spent the whole day in each other's company.__

____

____

That was how it was, between them, and it had been all fine and good as long as neither of them had attempted to put a name to it. 

***

“Would you like to come visit for Christmas day? We could drink that nice Macallan scotch I’ve been saving.”  
So, this is new. Crowley’s a little thrown off at first but manages to recover himself quickly enough.  
“Mmm. Yeah, I expect I’ll be able to manage that. Take some time out of my schedule.”  
Aziraphale smiles at him a little uncertainly, then grins more broadly when he turns his gaze to the road. “Crowley, look!”  


It’s apparent that they’ve reached Tadfield by the sharp transition in the weather from a drizzly grey haze to heavy, picturesque snowfall. Big weighty drifts cover every surface, and in the distance children can be seen, some of them buried up to the knees, sledging and building snowmen and, occasionally, ramming a sizeable handful down each other’s jumpers and laughing themselves sick. Admittedly, at least one pair of snowmen appear to be performing a rather gruesome William Tell display which involves knocking each other’s heads off with snowballs, because it can’t all be picture-perfect greeting card whimsy.

***  
The Youngs’ tiny house is cosily decorated and crammed full of neighbours, distant relatives, and one over-enthusiastic former hellhound nipping at various guests' ankles, while jazz instrumental covers of various carols play on the radio.  
Within moments of entering, they’re both handed steaming cups of mulled wine and an endlessly optimistic Arthur Young is attempting to delicately interrogate them as to what it was exactly that his son and friends were doing at that air base in the first place. (He'll later walk away with the vague sense that things had sort of been resolved, despite not, as such, having been given any real concrete information. The wine helps.)  
Within the first few minutes, Aziraphale, with nothing but innocently misplaced good intentions, has spent some time educating the children about the history of Victorian parlour games, as a result of which Adam and his friends are now playing a noisy and rather volatile game of “Are You There, Moriarty?” Eventually they’re sent upstairs to avoid getting in the way, meaning that the occasional slightly worrying thud is heard through the ceiling as they continue to play. Luckily, it’s also accompanied by raucous laughter from all four of them. 

***

Making his way to the kitchen for a bit of space, Crowley encounters Anathema leaning against the counter. She raises her drink in a silent greeting when he enters.  
"Happy solstice. How's the messy, arbitrary old world treating you?"  
Crowley shrugs. “Well as can be expected. How’s… how’s whatsisname? The computer kid.”  
“He’s… fine, I think. Or not. We broke up.”  
“Oh.” Crowley wonders whether he should be commiserating.  
“Well.” She takes a swig. “It wasn’t really working. Turns out that without the prophecies steering us along there wasn’t really anything keeping us together. We were starting to annoy each other, in the long run.” She shrugs.  
“Prophecies all gone, then?”  
“Yep.” She sighs heavily. “Takes some getting used to, you know. I don’t know what to do with myself, nowadays. Might go travelling somewhere. Start running a goat farm or something.” She waves a hand. “Great big world out there.”  
“Thanks to our sterling efforts.” It occurs to Crowley that, comparatively speaking, he’s not really in much of a position to complain about _loose ends. _  
“And what about you and that… librarian guy? How are you getting on?”  
“He runs a bookshop,” says Crowley absently, then fully registers what he’s just heard. “Wait. We’re... well. We’re not.” He’s suddenly struck with the realisation that he’s talking to a potential confidante, and experiences a moment of uncharacteristic sincerity. “I don’t know where we go from here, if we’re being honest.” She nods slowly, and gazes a little fuzzily into her empty glass. “Can I give you some advice, Mister…”  
“Crowley.”  
“You can’t rely on things just _happening _, Mr Crowley. Best to take the occasional risk, really. I'm finding out the hard way.”  
She places her glass on the counter and strolls past him, looking over her shoulder. “People do see the way you look at each other, you know.” Crowley sneers, but it's more of a cursory effort than indicative of any real disdain. "No need to be getting mawkish about it."  
"Suit yourself. Just don't leave it too long, is all I'm saying."____

__

Already a little out-of-sorts as a result of the exchange, Crowley is thrown a little more off-guard when he wanders back into the living room and notices that Aziraphale has gone off somewhere. A bit of searching reveals that he's gone outdoors for some air, which is where Crowley finds him, lingering at the gate with a rather lost expression which isn't dissimilar to how Crowley's feeling himself, at this point.  


A few feet away, a street corner choir decked out like it’s the 1870’s are singing about news of great joy, joy, news of great mirth and, for that matter, news of our merciful king's birth. 

Crowley ambles up to him. “Something wrong?”  
“Oh, gosh, nothing, really. I’m being silly.” Aziraphale gives a forced, rather miserable half-laugh.  
“No, look... what is it? Have I done something?”  
“No! No. Just...” he sighs heavily. “I was making some conversation, back in the house and people... it seems that the people who've met us tend to think we're... listen, Crowley, do you ever think about how... things could have been different?”  
“How d’you mean?”  
“I... well, between us. I’m being so spoilt, really, because I really am happy with the state of things, now.”  
“You’re not... you’re not being spoilt.” Crowley gnaws on his bottom lip, unsure of exactly where this exchange is going. “Listen, I... you could just tell me what’s wrong. What’s the worst thing that could happen, eh?” He rests one hand gently between the angel’s shoulder blades. Nothing too forward.  
“But I know it’s my fault. That things didn’t happen for us the way... the way that we might have wanted.”  
“It’s not your fault. Why would it be your fault?”  
“Because I... I pushed you away. I was unkind to you. Back then.”  
“No... no. Listen, I hate to admit this, but you weren’t wrong, were you? We couldn’t have done anything too risky, not with that lot breathing down our neck. We didn’t have the option of just doing what we wanted, right? Wasn’t your fault. Wasn’t either of our faults.”  
“It wasn’t just that. I thought... at the time I thought it was the right thing, for me to reject you like that. I suppose I still thought they were in the right, at the time.”  
“That’s... well, look, I bought into it all too, way back before it all went wrong. And look what happened to me when I went a bit rogue, eh? There’s no point dwelling on it all now.” Crowley sighs. “Look, I’m not good at this sort of thing. Weighty stuff. We don’t really say things, do we? Not all of them. Not out loud.”  
“Say them now.” Aziraphale presses in. “I want us to say those things now. Please, Crowley. have a feeling we’re on the verge of something just terribly important here.”  
Crowley shrugs. “I love you.”

For a second he can’t believe he’s here, doing it now. Standing around confessing his love on Christmas (or near enough, at any rate) with a bloody street corner choir providing backing vocals, off all things. Like some sentimental film. Really, it’s a miracle he wasn’t booted from his demonic post a long, long time ago.

Regardless, he soldiers on.

“Right. So. Information. Yes. Maybe it started in the garden, with you and that sword. Or the time in Rome. Or that Shakespeare business. Or even that time when your coat got paint on it, and you were so obviously angling for me to do something about it. You're nowhere near as subtle as you think you are, by the way. Truth be told, I’m not sure where it all kicked off for me. Lost track a little, over the years. Point is I’ve been... continuing to fall in love with you for a good few thousand years or so. Er. So you can have me, any way you’d like, basically. Up to you now. We don’t have to answer to the higher-ups or... or the lower-downs any more so it’s more-or-less up to us what we get up to now and... do that’s that. I love you. Have done for quite a long time now, and maybe you’d like to weigh in on this at some point, because I’m running out of steam a bit here.”  


Aziraphale smiles, scrubbing the back of his hand over his eyes. There are snowflakes in his hair. “It was the church, for me. The books. That was when I knew. But I thought I’d missed my chance.”  
“Oh, you didn’t want to go thinking a thing like that.”  
“I assume you'll definitely be spending Christmas Day with me, then?”  
Crowley smirks. “Yeah. Yes, I think that’s definitely fair to say.” He clears his throat. “And I need to kiss you now, if that’s all the same with you.”

Aziraphale smiles as if he’s found something even better than Dickens and discount poinsettias, and draws him in.

The choir, with an unerring instinct for the aptitude of these things, end their song on a triumphant crescendo, gather up their things and head off to the pub.

***

It’s Christmas morning, and Crowley is draped around Aziraphale in the massive canopied bed he keeps in a secret room above the bookshop.  
“We could stay here all day. Very sensible way to spend Christmas, I reckon. You’re supposed to loaf about, aren’t you? ‘’ S traditional. Getting sloshed on brandy and falling asleep in front of some made-for-TV film.”

"That's a little more modern than I was thinking, sweetness."  
(Aziraphale has an extensive array of terms of endearment which Crowley should despise and doesn't.)  
Crowley kisses his neck. "I'd still say the loafing was pretty timeless."

Aziraphale squirms underneath him. “Let me get up. I want to give you your stocking.”  
“You’ve put a satsuma in it, haven’t you.”  
“Of course. And a sixpence and a sugar mouse.”  
“Of course you’ve got out-of-date coins lying around.”  
“Don’t be cheeky, or I won’t give it to you.”

“Hmm.” Crowley takes one of his hands, kissing his wrist and knuckles. 

He can’t see himself getting used to this any time soon. By his reckoning, they’ve got a good few decades at least of being in the heady flush of new romance before they properly settle into cosy domesticity. He’s looking forward to it.  
“Bring them back to bed then? And then... say, another hour?”  
“Oh, I suppose we can stretch to an hour. Seeing as it’s Christmas.” Aziraphale smiles and holds him tightly for a moment. “Just for you.”


End file.
